Pros And Cons Of Assisted Reproductive Technology

“Reproductive freedom is not just the ability not to have a child through birth control. It's the ability to have one if and when you want.” (Madsen). “[Assisted Reproductive Technology] refers to treatments and procedures that aim to achieve pregnancy” (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development). The use of reproductive technology has grown exponentially over the past 15 years due to infertility issues (Stevenson). People use these procedures to conceive a specific gender or they are unable to conceive naturally they will use these procedures. There are some concerns about the future use of these technologies and some risks that need to be addressed. Researchers know little about the impact of these technologies (Franco Furger

"One of the known complications of ART is the predominance of multiple births. To ensure that pregnancy takes place, multiple embryos can be placed within the woman's uterus, potentially resulting in multiple births." (Gale, Preface). There should be a regulation to how many embryos can be planted inside of the uterus. Multiple unanticipated babies could cause a financial and emotional burden on the parents. The number of children, financial state, and mental state should be checked before allowing procedures to begin (Dooley 5). "ART procedures are extremely costly. The fee for freezing eggs can be almost $10,000. The cost of hormone treatments to stimulate egg production can be another $4,000. The future in vitro fertilization of the eggs will cost around $15,000 to $20,000" (Gale, Preface). People can charge any amount of money for these procedures and treatments if they do not have any order or moral obligations. The cost of these procedures should be regulated to give lower income people a chance to have children if they have infertility issues. On the whole, women should not have to spend their life savings on treatments to assist

"...one of the more pressing quandaries generated by ART is its proximity to cloning. The laboratory techniques generated by ART are the same as those used in cloning" (Gale, Preface). These technologies could lead to human quality control. People will pay for these procedures to make their children look a certain way or even like certain people. “Techniques used in human cloning could potentially endanger the developing fetus. Somatic cell nuclear transfer has not been refined nor yet proven to be safe in the long term” (eNotes). Assisted reproductive and human cloning technologies have proven to come with a higher miscarriage rate. Regulating what these technologies can be used for will prevent cloning. Overall, As reproductive technologies grow there is not telling how advanced and complicated these procedures will